by Darcy Town
Uriel clawed at him. “You will not do it! You do not have the strength—”
Andy twisted and ripped the wing off, enjoying Uriel’s agony as he screamed. He dropped Uriel and beat him in the face with his wing. He grabbed Uriel’s arm and wrenched, dislocating it.
Helion padded over and grabbed his other arm doing the same. They let him go and watched Uriel as he cried helpless on the ground.
Helion lunged for Uriel. Andy held him back. “Wait.”
“Why?”
Andy stared at Uriel. “I want him to know what he caused before we kill him.”
Helion frowned. “Take him back?”
“I want him to see her.”
Helion nodded once. “I agree.”
They both took an arm and leapt into the air. Whitney spiraled overhead; she led the way back silently. Uriel wept, begged, screamed, and raged. No one paid him any heed, as if he said nothing at all.
Whitney landed next to Apple. Everyone looked to her. She pointed.
Andy and Helion dropped to the ground with Uriel in-between them. Raphael stepped towards him. Andy and Helion bared their fangs. Andy growled. “No one touches him but us.”
Dahlia wrapped an arm around Raphael and pulled her back.
Helion forced Uriel’s head up. “Look!”
Uriel gaped at Belial. “Belial!” His semi-smile faltered. She was cold, dead.
Andy looked to Lucifer. “Light it.”
Lucifer and Dahlia held hands and pointed at the pyre. A rush of red and blue flame mixed into white. The pyre ignited, super hot, Belial’s body turned to ash almost instantly. Dahlia and Lucifer stepped back, leaving the three alone by the flame.
Uriel wailed. Heat licked his skin as if he were in the flame with her. “Belial!”
Andy and Helion stood facing the fire as Belial’s body burnt away. A wind picked up and her ashes took to the air as the flame ate away at the stacks of wood beneath her.
Andy hauled Uriel to his feet and took a step towards the flame. “Your turn.”
“No!” Uriel pulled away. “No please!”
Helion grabbed Uriel by the hair and shook him until his shouts turned to whimpers. He trembled in anger. “For everything you have done to my sister you beg and expect mercy?”
Uriel wept. “Please.”
Helion punched into Uriel’s chest, his arm going in up to his elbow. Helion grabbed Belial’s heart. His nose touched Uriel’s. “No.”
Helion wrenched his arm out. He held a heart, soft and protected by the cage his hand made around it. Helion put his foot to Uriel’s shoulder and kicked him towards Andy.
Andy caught Uriel. He lifted the still living Archangel off his feet. Andy walked forward and shoved Uriel’s head in the flame. Uriel screamed. Andy watched his face blister, peel, and burn away; he memorized it, staring at Uriel unblinking. He picked up the rest of Uriel and heaved him into the fire. Uriel bucked and writhed as his body was reduced to ash.
Helion stared at Belial’s heart; it beat in his hands. His pulse changed to match it. His white pupil expanded to fill his blackened eye with light. He opened his mouth and swallowed the beating organ whole. His normal eye turned black.
The air around Helion grew dark. He spasmed and clutched at his chest. A dual-toned whimper escaped his lips. He folded his wings around his body and wailed. The darkness from his skin rushed outwards like smoke and Helion dissolved into it. The shadows swirled and sucked into a pinpoint. A dark bubble the size of a dime hovered in the air and winked out, leaving nothing behind.
The field was silent except for the snap and pop of flames on wood.
Dahlia and Lucifer broke out of their surprise first and clawed at the spot. Dahlia turned to Raphael. “Check Hell! Find him!”
Lucifer closed his eyes. “I cannot feel him anywhere.”
Dahlia concentrated. “Neither can I.”
Lucifer frowned. “That is not possible.”
Raphael returned. “He is not in Hell.”
Lucifer and Dahlia gazed into each other’s eyes. Dahlia did not know what to say. Lucifer touched his eye. “The strangeness there, a separate place within.”
Dahlia frowned. “I may have caused this ability in him.” She searched her memory. “I aided his crossover to fallen angel.” She bit her lip. “How can he be nowhere? He has not ceased to exist.”
Lucifer shook his head. “I would know, he is one of my Archangel’s now, he simply no longer is able to be contacted. He is a place separate from Heaven, Hell, or here.”
Whitney stared at the spot he used to be. “He is doing what he needs to.” She nodded. “He is fine.”
Dahlia hugged Whitney. “Whitney.”
Whitney shook her head. “He is fine.” She looked at Dahlia and smiled. “He’ll be okay.”
Andy paid them no heed. He stayed on his knees before the pyre. He contemplated throwing himself upon the flames, but he knew that Lucifer or Dahlia would pull him out before he could die. So he stayed motionless and let the heat brush across his face in waves.
Andy’s heart beat slowly. It had nothing to live for, nothing to keep him going, yet it continued to beat. He found this strange. He had always expected he would end when she did; it had never occurred to him that he could continue if she died.
Andy wished the organ would cease beating. He wished that he would feel as dead as Belial. His heart might live on a physical thing, but his emotional core had been ripped from him as surely as Helion had taken it from Uriel. He went numb, not even able to cry.
The others grew silent and sat behind him. The sun rose straight overhead, reaching its zenith. The heat was scorching, but no one moved.
Hours passed. They stared at the flames as the sun went down and darkness reclaimed the land. The stars came out one-by-one. The flames died down to embers, the embers to a fine white ash. Slowly those around him walked off in pairs, back to Eden or into the wilds, but Andy stayed. Whitney stayed. Neither had any reason to leave; they had nowhere else to go.
***
Wednesday
Gabriel stared at his hands; he had been doing this for some time.
He did not have a thought in his head. That was a first for him. He tried to think, but he could not. He did not know what to do. He had been given a task. He intended to see it through…at some point. The when of it was rather vague for him. Things just did not seem important any more.
Gabriel rationalized the stalling with the realization that he was missing information, the kind of information that could only be found in memory and experience. The items he had locked away and forgotten existed for so long. Dahlia had changed that. She’d restored his memories, all of them. He had them inside.
Gabriel focused and a memory surfaced, then another. They engulfed his senses.
Gabriel remembered flying alongside Furcas, the two singing together, happy without a worry. He remembered Paimon teaching him things about the universe, imparting all of his knowledge to him. It seemed odd to him now that Furcas and Paimon had never met until the planet was created, perhaps it had been fate.
His thoughts circled back to his brother. Paimon had been the first thing Gabriel had seen in his long existence. He remembered Paimon picking him up, holding him upside-down by his foot and giving him a once over before nodding and saying, “Acceptable.”
Gabriel mimicked his brother’s voice. He looked around to see if anyone was watching him, but he was alone.
Paimon had taken him and shown him around Heaven, as all the other Archangels had when their siblings were born. Gabriel remembered Paimon as they flew side by side; he had learned everything there was to learn about Heaven, about rules and calculations.
Gabriel shook his head to focus on the here and now, but again he blanked. He bit his cheek and stared into the never ceasing light of Heaven. Gabriel scratched his head, sure that eventually something would come to him.
Near the throne, Michael waited with Samuel. The pair watched the fire swirl. An Archan
gel formed.
METATRON, A TRUE REPLACEMENT FOR BARACHIEL. SAMUEL YOU ARE BETTER SUITED FOR BATTLE, THIS ONE WILL TAKE THE REGISTER.
A black-haired youth opened his eyes, steel gray, unfeeling. He held Barachiel’s register in his hands. The youth was branded above his heart.
Michael gestured at the boy. “Why is he marked that way?”
NO MORE MAY HAVE FREE WILL OR FALL AWAY. NO MORE MAY HAVE HEARTS. I DO NOT REQUIRE FEELINGS. I REQUIRE OBEDIENCE.
Michael frowned and watched as another Archangel was produced. The boy stumbled out of the flame. He had long white hair, was wild-eyed and long-limbed, his similarity to Berith and Uriel unmistakable. The boy looked intensely confused and scared of existence.
AZRAEL, TO REPLACE URIEL.
Michael flinched; he had felt Uriel die. He steeled his nerves and beckoned for the young ones. Azrael and Metatron stood at his side, a pair of opposites. Michael looked at them with uncertainty in his eyes; they barely came up to his ribs. They were scrawny and gawky and from Azrael he felt fright.
The fire churned and a third was born, female and young.
ARIEL, MY WRATH.
Ariel stood up; she too had a brand over her heart. Her hair was honey-colored, her eyes blue, her lips pouting. She looked like a prepubescent version of Dahlia. Ariel smiled, showing rows of sharp teeth like a shark. She bowed to Michael. “Archangel, we three are at your service.”
Michael stared at the youths; to him they appeared children. Unbidden, memories of his own childhood came back to him. “They are so young.”
YES. THE FALLEN WILL PAUSE TO STRIKE THEM.
Michael ground his teeth and chose his words carefully, “I pause to use them.”
DO NOT. I DESIGNED THEM TO DIE FOR THE CAUSE. THEY CAN BE REPLACED EASILY. THEIR YOUTH IS A CAMOFLAUGE ONLY.
Michael kneeled before the throne. “If you would make me Primangel, I could—”
NO.
Michael nodded stiffly to hide his disappointment. “As you command.”
***
There was darkness and a mirror in quicksilver. Helion opened his eyes.
In the silver surface, Belial looked at him. He blinked. She blinked. He held his hand up. She held hers up. Mirror twins.
They were young again, barely teenagers as they had before the split. Blonde with blue eyes, skin unblemished, wings cobalt blue and soft.
Helion gulped. “You.”
Belial swallowed. “You.” Her eyes darted about. “Where are we, Helion?”
Helion shrugged. “I do not know, other than the fact that no one can reach us here.”
“Why?”
“We required space and so a space was created for us.”
“We?” She frowned. “But, I am no longer separate.” She frowned as she sensed him out. “You did not honor my wishes, Helion.”
He shook his head. “I did. You asked me to take your life away.”
“The intent was not for me to then remain in you.”
Helion cut the air with his hand. “I removed your life-force from your body. Freed from its house, your soul rejoined with mine. As we were at our inception, one soul and one body. There was nothing I could do to prevent this. I did not understand it, until now.”
Belial frowned. “Then my prison has only been extended.”
He reached out to the quicksilver. “No, I seek to free you.”
Belial smiled slightly. “Then free me, subsume me and take my consciousness into your own, absorb and dissolve me.”
“No.”
She frowned. “No?”
Helion traced his finger on the quicksilver; she reached up to do the same. He looked into her eyes. “I must understand, Belial. Why do you seek to disappear?”
Belial touched her chest. A hole appeared with no heart. “I have been in pieces for too long, I am tired. I do not want to remember what Uriel did; I do not want to live with it.”
“Uriel is dead.”
She smiled and then looked away. “The memories are not.”
“They linger?”
“Yes.”
“Give them up.”
Belial snatched her hand back. “What?”
Helion leaned towards her image. “Give them up; if you seek to be without them then give them up to me.”
“We are one, Helion. This cannot be done.”
“Are we?” Helion looked at her image. “I rejoined us and yet this divide exists, a conversation occurs as if we were two beings.”
She smiled slightly. “We are a split personality now.”
He smiled with her. “We have always been a split personality, though I have failed in doing what I should have.”
“What is your meaning?”
“The personality created should protect the one injured. I did not protect you. I have not protected you all this time.”
“Not your responsibility.” Belial stuck her chin in the air. “I lived with it, fought, and survived.”
“Belial.” Helion reached for her. “I want you to thrive, not just survive.”
She frowned. “This conversation is pointless. My body is gone; soon even this scrap will be as well.”
Helion shook his head. He pointed to the hole in her chest; a heart filled it. He watched as she looked down. “You have your heart back and with it your body can be remade.”
She paused. “You recovered it from him. Good, but that does not change anything.”
“It does.” Helion touched his chest. “We were born of one body, one soul, and so we can be again. We can split again.”
Belial took a step back from the quicksilver. “I do not desire to go back to the memories or pain.”
“That body and what he did to it is gone, Belial.”
“My memories are not, Helion!”
“Your memories are our memories now, but that heart, it does not have them, it was taken from you, it is pure still. You can rejoin it and be free.”
She held his gaze. “What will I be without my memories?”
“You will be as you were supposed to be, innocence—”
“Stupidity.”
Helion glared at her. “You seek to distance yourself from the girl that was victimized.”
“I am not a victim!” Her eyes flashed.
“You were and that is not shameful to admit!”
She turned away. Helion concentrated. The silver between them disappeared, and they were in one small room together. She bumped into the wall and turned to him. “Let me sleep again!”
“No.” He sat down and patted the floor. “You will listen to your brother for once.”
Belial sat.
He held her hand. “You need to face what occurred without demonizing your past self.” He steadied his hands. “You did not deserve what happened. You were not hurt because you were innocent.”
“Yes, I was.”
“Shh.” Helion interlaced their fingers. “You were hurt because Uriel was a sick, broken thing. What he did has nothing to do with your qualities. He was twisted, his design flawed.”
“I could have fought harder!”
“What would you have done? How would you have fought harder? You loved him, like you loved the rest of us, you did not know. How can you fight what you do not understand? You could not, because you could not even conceive of what he would do. None of us could. No one was more horrified or taken by surprise than Berith, and they were from the same mold.”
Belial began to cry. “I thought he would help me!” She wiped at her tears. “He said you asked him to come and help me!”
Helion trembled. “I did. I showed Uriel where you were. I thought he could, would help you. I led him to you and for that I am forever, utterly at fault.” He leeched out her pain. “I can never undo what he did, but you should not be the one to suffer for my mistakes.”
“I should have known!”
“Why? You trusted me, but I was the fool. I delivered the lamb to the lion.” Helion bit his lip. “That should have been my punis
hment, not yours, Belial.”
She looked up. “Heli.”
“I tried to go back when I realized, but he had moved you.” Helion’s face was haunted. “I went to Lucifer so that he could retrieve you.” He gulped. “When I saw what Uriel had done I fled when I should have stood with you, comforted you, you needed me then, and I ran.”
Belial shook her head. “No, Helion. By the time Lucifer came he had already killed me and remade me out of him, a golem for his amusement. He said he loved me.” Belial wiped her tears. “I thought that was all love was for some time.”
He squeezed her fingers. “But you know differently now?”
Belial trembled. “Andrealphus, I—we always were in love.” She smiled through her tears. “He was so cautious, afraid of making a mistake. He would have been gentle.”
“He needs you, Belial.”
She looked away. “For the hurt my death brings him I am forever sorry, but I remain here, inside you.”
Helion shook his head. “There is no me anymore, Belial. We both exist in this place.”
“What?”
“This is not inside anyone’s head, Belial. We are both here, wherever this is.”
“How could you leave Whitney?” Belial got to her knees. “Go back this instant!”
Helion tapped his eye. “One way ticket I am afraid.”
“Helion! What have you done?”
He tapped his chin. “I believe it is called an end-run.”
“Explain yourself!”
Helion linked their hands. “I made the possibility of my return contingent on your return. I offer you a second chance.”
She frowned. “What do you mean by that?”
“You died at Uriel’s hand; he killed you almost as soon as he had you.”
“Yes.”
“What he did, he did to your second self.”
“Yes.”
“Then I offer you a restart.”
She frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“You wake up as if you had never died the first time, as if you never went on. You skip over it and reclaim yourself.”
Belial blinked back tears. “Back to the way I was?”
“Yes, the memories of that event gone.”
“How can they be split from me?”
“I will keep them, they will be mine.”
She shook her head. “I cannot do that to you.”